Madrasah
, Uzbekistan 2007]] , Uzbekistan circa 1912]] Madrasah ( , madrasa pl. , madāris) is the Arabic word (of Semitic origin; viz Hebrew Midrash) for any type of educational institution, whether secular or religious (of any religion). It is variously transliterated as madrasah, madarasaa, medresa, madrassa, madraza, madarsa, medrese etc. *''Madrasah ʿāmah'' ( ) translates as "public school". *''Madrasah khāṣah'' ( ) translates as "private school". *''Madrasah dīniyyah'' ( ) translates as "religious school". *''Madrasah Islāmiyyah'' ( ) translates as "Islamic school". *''Madrasah Jāmiʿah'' ( ) translates as "university". Definition . They learn parts of the Qur'an from wooden tablets.]] The word madrasah is derived from the triconsonantal Semitic root د-ر-س (D-R-S), which relates to learning or studying, through the wazn (form/stem) ( mafʻal(a), meaning "a place where X is done." Therefore, madrasah literally means "a place where learning/studying is done". The word is also present as a loanword with the same innocuous meaning in many Arabic-influenced languages, such as: Urdu, Bengali, Hindi, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Indonesian, Malay and Bosnian. In the Arabic language, the word مدرسة (madrasah) simply means the same as school does in the English language, whether that is private, public or parochial school, as well as for any primary or secondary school whether Muslim, non-Muslim, or secular. Unlike the understanding of the word school in British English, the word madrasah is like the term school in American English, in that it can refer to a university-level or post-graduate school as well. For example, in the Ottoman Empire during the Early Modern Period, Madrasahs had lower schools and specialized schools where the students became known as danismends.Inalcik, Halil. 1973. "Learning, the Medrese, and the Ulema." In The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. New York: Praeger, pp. 165–178. The usual Arabic word for a university, however, is simply '' (jāmiʿah). The Hebrew cognate ''midrasha also connotes the meaning of a place of learning; the related term midrash literally refers to study or learning, but has acquired mystical and religious connotations. However, in English, the term madrasah usually refers to the specifically Islamic institutions. A typical Islamic school usually offers two courses of study: a hifz course; that is memorisation of the Qur'an (the person who commits the entire Qur'an to memory is called a hafiz); and an 'alim course leading the candidate to become an accepted scholar in the community. A regular curriculum includes courses in Arabic, Tafsir (Qur'anic interpretation), shari'ah (Islamic law), Hadith (recorded sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad), Mantiq (logic), and Muslim history. In the Ottoman Empire, during the Early Modern Period, the learning of the Hadith was introduced by Suleyman I. Depending on the educational demands, some madrasahs also offer additional advanced courses in Arabic literature, English and other foreign languages, as well as science and world history. Ottoman madrasahs along with religious teachings also taught "styles of writing, grammary, syntax, poetry, composition, natural sciences, political sciences, and etiquette." People of all ages attend, and many often move on to becoming imams. The certificate of an ‘alim for example, requires approximately twelve years of study. A good number of the huffaz (plural of hafiz) are the product of the madrasahs. The madrasahs also resemble colleges, where people take evening classes and reside in dormitories. An important function of the madrasahs is to admit orphans and poor children in order to provide them with education and training. Madrasahs may enroll female students; however, they study separately from the men. In South Africa, the madrasahs also play a socio-cultural role in giving after-school religious instruction to Muslim children who attend government or private non-religious schools. However, increasing numbers of more affluent Muslim children attend full-fledged private Islamic Schools which combine secular and religious education. Among Muslims of Indian origin, madrasahs also used to provide instruction in Urdu, although this is far less common today than it used to be. Early history , Alauddin Khilji's Madrasa, Qutb complex, Delhi, India, built ca 1316 CE]] .]] Madrasahs did not exist in the early beginnings of Islam. Their formation can probably be traced to the early Islamic custom of meeting in mosques to discuss religious issues. At this early stage, people seeking religious knowledge tended to gather around certain more knowledgeable Muslims. These informal teachers later became known as shaykhs; and these shaykhs began to hold regular religious education sessions called majalis (Sessions). Established in 859, Jami'at al-Qarawiyyin (located in Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque) in the city of Fas, Morocco, is considered the oldest madrasah in the Muslim world. It was founded by Fatima al-Fihri, the daughter of a wealthy merchant named Mohammed Al-Fihri. This was later followed by what is now Al-Azhar University, established in 959 in Cairo, Egypt. During the late Abbasid period, the Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk created one of the first major official academic institutions known in history as the Madrasah Nizamiyyah, based on the informal majalis (sessions of the shaykhs). Al-Mulk, who would later be murdered by the Assassins (Hashshashin), created a system of state madrasahs (in his time they were called, the Nizamiyyahs, named after him) in various Abbasid cities at the end of the 11th century. During the rule of the FatimidJonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), passim and MamlukIra Lapidus, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), passim dynasties and their successor states in the medieval Middle East, many of the ruling elite founded madrasahs through a religious endowment known as the waq'f. Not only was the madrasah a potent symbol of status but it was an effective means of transmitting wealth and status to their descendants. Especially during the Mamluk period, when only former slaves could assume power, the sons of the ruling Mamluk elite were unable to inherit. Guaranteed positions within the new madrasahs thus allowed them to maintain status. Madrasahs built in this period include the Mosque-Madrasah of Sultan Hasan in Cairo. Dimitri Gutas and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy consider the period between the 11th and 14th centuries to be the "Golden Age" of Arabic and Islamic philosophy, initiated by Al-Ghazali's successful integration of logic into the Madrasah curriculum and the subsequent rise of Avicennism. At the beginning of the Caliphate, or Islamic Empire, the reliance on courts initially confined sponsorship and scholarly activities to major centers. Within several centuries, the development of Muslim educational institutions such as the Madrasah and Masjid eventually introduced such activities to provincial towns and dispersed them across the Islamic legal schools and Sufi orders. In addition to religious subjects, they also taught "rational sciences" as varied as mathematics, astronomy, astrology, geography, alchemy, philosophy, magic, and occultism, depending on the curriculum of the specific institution in question. During this time, the Caliphate experienced a growth in literacy, having the highest literacy rate of the Middle Ages, comparable to classical Athens' literacy in antiquity but on a much larger scale. The emergence of the Maktab and Madrasah institutions played a fundamental role in the relatively high literacy rates of the medieval Islamic world. The following excerpt provides a brief synopsis of the historical origins and starting points for the teachings that took place in the Ottoman madrasahs in the Early Modern Period: "Taşköprülüzâde's concept of knowledge and his division of the sciences provides a starting point for a study of learning and medrese education in the Ottoman Empire. Taşköprülüzâde recognizes four stages of knowledge—spiritual, intellectual, oral and written. Thus all the sciences fall into one of these seven categories: calligraphic sciences, oral sciences, intellectual sciences, spiritual sciences, theoretical rational sciences, practical rational sciences. The First Ottoman medrese was created in Iznik in 1331, when a converted Church building was assigned as a medrese to a famous scholar, Dâvûd of Kayseri.Suleyman made an important change in the hierarchy of Ottoman medreses. He established four general medreses and two more for specialized studies, one devoted to the hadith and the other to medicine. He gave the highest ranking to these and thus established the hierarchy of the medreses which was to continue until the end of the empire." Female education From around 750, during the Abbasid Caliphate, women “became renowned for their brains as well as their beauty”.Doreen Insgrams (1983), The Awakened: Women in Iraq, p. 22, Third World Centre for Research and Publishing Ltd., Lebanon In particular, many well known women of the time were trained from childhood in music, dancing and poetry. Mahbuba was one of these. Another feminine figure to be remembered for her achievements was Tawaddud “a slave girl who was said to have been bought at great cost by Harun al-Rashid because she had passed her examinations by the most eminent scholars in astronomy, medicine, law, philosophy, music, history, Arabic grammar, literature, theology and chess”.Doreen Insgrams (1983), The Awakened: Women in Iraq, p. 23, Third World Centre for Research and Publishing Ltd., Lebanon Moreover, among the most prominent feminine figures was Shuhda who was known as “the Scholar” or “the Pride of Women” during the twelfth century in Baghdad. Despite the recognition of women’s aptitudes during the Abbasid dynasty, all these came to an end in Iraq with the sack of Baghdad in 1258.Anthony Nutting, The Arabs. (Hollis and Carter, 1964), p. 196 Women played an important role in the foundations of many Islamic educational institutions, such as Fatima al-Fihri's founding of the University of Al Karaouine in 859. This continued through to the Ayyubid dynasty in the 12th and 13th centuries, when 160 mosques and madrasahs were established in Damascus, 26 of which were funded by women through the Waqf (charitable trust) system. Half of all the royal patrons for these institutions were also women. According to the Sunni scholar Ibn Asakir in the 12th century, there were opportunities for female education in the medieval Islamic world, writing that women could study, earn ijazahs (academic degrees), and qualify as scholars and teachers. This was especially the case for learned and scholarly families, who wanted to ensure the highest possible education for both their sons and daughters. Ibn Asakir had himself studied under 80 different female teachers in his time. Female education in the Islamic world was inspired by Muhammad's wives, such as Khadijah, a successful businesswoman. According to a hadith attributed to Muhammad, he praised the women of Medina because of their desire for religious knowledge: While it was not common for women to enroll as students in formal classes, it was common for women to attend informal lectures and study sessions at mosques, madrasahs and other public places. While there were no legal restrictions on female education, some men did not approve of this practice, such as Muhammad ibn al-Hajj (d. 1336) who was appalled at the behaviour of some women who informally audited lectures in his time: The term 'awra is often translated as "that which is indecent", which usually meant the exposure of anything other than a woman's face and hands, although scholarly interpretations of the 'awra and hijab have always tended to vary, with some more or less strict than others. While women accounted for no more than one percent of Islamic scholars prior to the 12th century, there was a large increase of female scholars after this. In the 15th century, Al-Sakhawi devotes an entire volume of his 12-volume biographical dictionary Daw al-lami to female scholars, giving information on 1,075 of them. More recently, the scholar Mohammad Akram Nadwi, currently a researcher from the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, has written 40 volumes on the 'muhaddithat' (the women scholars of hadith), and found at least 8000 of them.Reconsideration: A Secret History Elementary education In the medieval Islamic world, an elementary school was known as a maktab, which dates back to at least the 10th century. Like madrasahs (which referred to higher education), a maktab was often attached to a dono-mosque. In the 11th century, the famous Persian Islamic philosopher and teacher, Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in the West), in one of his books, wrote a chapter dealing with the angry maktab entitled "The Role of the Teacher in the Training and Upbringing of Children", as a guide to teachers working at maktab schools. He wrote that children can learn better if taught in classes instead of individual tuition from private tutors, and he gave a number of reasons for why this is the case, citing the value of competition and emulation among pupils as well as the usefulness of group discussions and debates. Ibn Sina described the curriculum of a maktab school in some detail, describing the curricula for two stages of education in a maktab school. Primary education Ibn Sina wrote that children should be sent to a maktab school from the age of 6 and be taught primary education until they reach the age of 14. During which time, he wrote that they should be taught the Qur'an, Islamic metaphysics, language, literature, Islamic ethics, and manual skills (which could refer to a variety of practical skills). Secondary education Ibn Sina refers to the secondary education stage of maktab schooling as the period of specialization, when pupils should begin to acquire manual skills, regardless of their social status. He writes that children after the age of 14 should be given a choice to choose and specialize in subjects they have an interest in, whether it was reading, manual skills, literature, preaching, medicine, geometry, trade and commerce, craftsmanship, or any other subject or profession they would be interested in pursuing for a future career. He wrote that this was a transitional stage and that there needs to be flexibility regarding the age in which pupils graduage, as the student's emotional development and chosen subjects need to be taken into account. Higher education During the formative period of the madrasah, used to refer to a higher education institution, philosophy and the secular sciences were often excluded from its curriculum, which initially only included the "religious sciences".Toby E. Huff (2003), The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, Cambridge University Press, pp. 77–8 The curriculum slowly began to diversify, with many later madrasahs teaching both the religious and the "secular sciences", like logic, mathematics and philosophy. Some madrasahs further extended their curriculum to history, politics, ethics, music, metaphysics, medicine, astronomy and chemistry. Some Islamic schools by the 12th century also taught early ideas related to evolution.John William Draper (1878), History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, pp. 154–5 & 237, ISBN 1603030964 The curriculum of a madrasah was usually set by its founder, but most generally taught both the religious sciences and the physical sciences. Madrasahs were established throughout the Islamic world, the most famous being the 10th century Al-Azhar University and the 11th century Nizamiyya, as well as 75 madrasahs in Cairo, 51 in Damascus and up to 44 in Aleppo between 1155 and 1260. Many more were also established in the Andalusian cities of Córdoba, Seville, Toledo, Granada (Madrasah of Granada), Murcia, Almería, Valencia and Cádiz during the Caliphate of Córdoba. Many of these Madrasahs often had a flexible curriculum, with the subjects taught often set by individual teachers. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=97l0L7zKagkC In the Ottoman Empire during the early modern period, "Madrasahs were divided into lower and specialized levels, which reveals that there was a sense of elevation in school. Students who studied in the specialized schools after completing courses in the lower levels became known as danismends." College The origins of the college lie in the medieval Islamic world. While "madrasah" can now refer to any type of school, the term "madrasah" was originally used to refer more specifically to a medieval Islamic college, mainly teaching Islamic law and theology, usually affiliated with a mosque, and funded by an early charitable trust known as Waqf. It has been argued that the internal organization of the first European colleges was borrowed from the earlier madrasahs, like the system of fellows and scholars, with the Latin term for fellow, socius, being a direct translation of the Arabic term for fellow, sahib. The funding for madrasahs came primarily from Waqf instititions, which were similar to the charitable trusts which later funded the first European colleges. Syed Farid Alatas writes: Law school Madrasahs were largely centered on the study of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The ijazat attadris wa 'l-ifta' ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") in the medieval Islamic legal education system had its origins in the 9th century after the formation of the Madh'hab legal schools. The ijazah is the origin of the European doctorate. However, in an earlier article, he considered the ijazah to be of "fundamental difference" to the medieval doctorate, since the former was awarded by an individual teacher-scholar not obliged to follow any formal criterias, whereas the latter was conferred on the student by the collective authority of the faculty.George Makdisi: "Madrasa and University in the Middle Ages", Studia Islamica, No. 32 (1970), pp. 255-264 (260) To obtain an ijazah , a student "had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course" and ten or more years for a post-graduate course. The "doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate's theses", and to test the student's "ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose." These were scholarly exercises practiced throughout the student's "career as a graduate student of law." After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded ijaza''s giving them the status of ''faqih (meaning "one who does law"), mufti (meaning "professor of Fatwā") and mudarris (meaning "teacher"). The Arabic term ijazat attadris, was awarded to Islamic scholars who were qualified to teach. According to Makdisi, the Latin title licentia docendi ( "license to teach") in the European university may have been a translation of the Arabic, but that the underlying concept was very different. A significant difference between the ijazat attadris and the licentia docendi was that the former was awarded by the individual scholar-teacher, while the latter was awarded by the chief official of the university, who represented the collective faculty, rather than the individual scholar-teacher. Toby Huff, Rise of Early Modern Science 2nd. ed. p. 78-79; 136, 155. Much of the study in the madrasa college centered on examining whether certain opinions of law were orthodox. This scholarly process of "determining orthodoxy began with a question which the Muslim layman, called in that capacity mustafti, presented to a jurisconsult, called mufti, soliciting from him a response, called fatwa, a legal opinion (the religious law of Islam covers civil as well as religious matters). The mufti (professor of legal opinions) took this question, studied it, researched it intensively in the sacred scriptures, in order to find a solution to it. This process of scholarly research vas called ijtihad, literally, the exertion of one's efforts to the utmost limit." Medical school Though Islamic medicine was most often taught at the Bimaristan teaching hospitals, there were also several madrasah medical schools dedicated to the teaching of medicine. For example, from the 155 madrasah colleges in 15th century Damascus, three of them were medical schools. Medical degrees were granted in the form of certificates called ijazah to those qualified to be physicians. They had to pass examinations in order to obtain the ijazah. During this era, physician licensure became mandatory in the Abbasid Caliphate. In 931 AD, Caliph Al-Muqtadir learned of the death of one of his subjects as a result of a physician's error. He immediately ordered his muhtasib Sinan ibn Thabit to examine and prevent doctors from practicing until they passed an examination. From this time on, licensing exams were required and only qualified physicians were allowed to practice medicine. According to medical historian Andrew C. Miller: In the Early Modern Period in the Ottoman Empire, "Suleyman I added new curriculums to the Ottoman medreses of which one was medicine, which alongside studying of the Hadith was given highest rank." University The university is usually defined as an institution of higher education and research which issues academic degrees. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the University of Al Karaouine, in Fez, Morocco, is recognized as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 by Fatima al-Fihri.''The Guinness Book of Records'', 1998, p. 242, ISBN 0-5535-7895-2 While the madrasah college could also issue degrees at all levels, the Jami`ah (such as Al Karaouine and Al-Azhar University) differed in the sense that it was a larger institution that was more universal in terms of its complete source of studies, had individual faculties for different subjects, and could house a number of mosques, madrasahs and other institutions within it. Such an institution has thus been described as an "Islamic university". Al-Azhar University, founded in Cairo, Egypt in 975 by the Ismaili Shi`ah Fatimid dynasty as a Jami'ah had individual faculties for a theological seminary, Islamic law and jurisprudence, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, early Islamic philosophy and logic in Islamic philosophy. The postgraduate doctorate in law was only obtained after "an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate's theses", and to test the student's "ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose." Abd-el-latif also delivered lectures on Islamic medicine at Al-Azhar, while Maimonides delivered lectures on medicine and astronomy there during the time of Saladin. Another early jami'ah was the Al-Nizamiyya of Baghdad (founded 1091), which has been called the "largest university of the Medieval world".A European Civil Project of a Documentation Center on Islam Mustansiriya University, established by the Abbasid caliph al-Mustansir in 1233, in addition to teaching the religious subjects, offered courses dealing with philosophy, mathematics and the natural sciences. Comparison with European universities Some have disputed the classification of madrasas as "universities". In Madrasas, the Islamic "doctorate" was primarily issued for the Islamic religious law of Sharia. : Other academic subjects, including the natural sciences, philosophy, and literary studies, were considered "ancillary" to the study of Sharia.Pedersen, J.; Rahman, Munibur; Hillenbrand, R. "Madrasa." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2010, retrieved 20/03/2010: The Islamic law undergraduate degree in Al-Azhar, the most prestigious madrasa, was traditionally granted on the basis of the students' attentive attendance to courses and their proficiency in the field.Jomier, J. "al- Azhar (al-Ḏj̲āmiʿ al-Azhar)." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2010 In contrast to the medieval doctorate which was granted by the collective authority of the faculty, the Islamic degree was not granted by the teacher to the pupil based on a formal criteria, but remained a "personal matter, the sole prerogative of the person bestowing it; no one could force him to give one".George Makdisi: "Madrasa and University in the Middle Ages", Studia Islamica, No. 32 (1970), pp. 255-264 (260): Medievalists who define the university as a legally autonomous corporation disagree with the term "university" for the Islamic madrasas because the medieval university (from Latin universitas) was, structurally, a legally autonomous corporation rather than a waqf institution like the madrasah and jami'ah.Toby Huff, Rise of early modern science 2nd ed.(Cambridge University, 2003) p. 149. Despite the many similarities, medieval specialists have coined the term "Islamic college" for madrasah to differentiate them from the legally autonomous corporations that the medieval European universities were. In a sense, the Madrasah resembles a university college in that it has most of the features of a university, but lacks the corporate element. Toby E. Huff compares the two insitutions as follows: Tony Huff argues that, it "remains the case that no equivalent of the bachelor's degree, the licentia docendi, or higher degrees ever emerged in the medieval or early modern Islamic madrasas."Toby Huff, Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, 2nd ed., Cambridge 2003, ISBN 0-521-52994-8, p. 155 C. E. Bosworth also argues that, while the organizational form of Western centers of higher learning allowed them to develop and flourish, "the Muslim ones remained constricted by the doctrine of waqf alone, with their physical plant often deteriorating hopelessly and their curricula narrowed by the exclusion of the non-traditional religious sciences like philosophy and natural science," claiming that these were considered potential toe-holds for kufr, those people who reject Allah.C. E. Bosworth: Untitled review of "The Rise of Colleges. Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West by George Makdisi", Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 2 (1983), pp. 304-305 Such claims, primarily by Huff. regarding the legal autonomy of European universities and limited curriculum of Madrasahs, have been convincingly refuted by George Saliba, who demonstrates that there were many Madrasahs dedicated to the teaching of non-religious subjects and that Madrasahs, in fact, generally had greater legal autonomy than medieval European universities, pointing out that Madrasahs institutions "were fully protected from interference in their curriculum by the very endowments that established them in the first place." As examples, Saliba points to the Dakhwariyya madrasah in Damascus which focused solely upon medicine, a subject also taught at almost every Islamic hospital; the Madrasah established by Kamal al-Din Ibn Man`a (d. 1242) in Mosul which taught "the astronomy of the Almagest, some music and even the Old and the New Testaments"; Ulugh Beg’s Madrasah in Samarqand which was "deeply involved in astronomical education at the highest theoretical level"; and Shi`i madrasahs in Iran which "all taught astronomy as well as religious studies and continue to do so until this day." Saliba concludes: Influence on European universities The madrasa of Al Karaouine, one of the two surviving madrasas predating the founding of the earliest medieval universities, has been called one of the "first universities" by authors.Kevin Shillington: "Encyclopedia of African history", Vol. 1, New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2005, ISBN 1579582451, p. 1025 The other, Al-Azhar, only acquired this status in name and essence through numerous reforms.Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob. "al-Azhar, modern period. 1. From madrasa to university" Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE. Edited by: Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas and Everett Rowson. Brill, 2010, retrieved 20/03/2010 It should also be noted that many medieval universities were run for centuries as Christian episcopal or monastic schools prior to their formal establishment as "universitas scholarium".Riché, Pierre (1978): "Education and Culture in the Barbarian West: From the Sixth through the Eighth Century", Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, ISBN 0-87249-376-8, pp. 126-7, 282-98 George Makdisi initially compared the two institutions in 1970 as follows: "Thus the university, as a form of social organization, was peculiar to medieval Europe. Later, it was exported to all parts of the world, including the Muslim East; and it has remained with us down to the present day. But back in the middle ages, outside of Europe, there was nothing anything quite like it anywhere."George Makdisi: "Madrasa and University in the Middle Ages", Studia Islamica, No. 32 (1970), pp. 255-264 (264) After decades of research, and publishing extensively on the topic,Extensive bibliography in: Pedersen, J.; Rahman, Munibur; Hillenbrand, R. "Madrasa." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Edited by: P. Bearman , Th. Bianquis , C.E. Bosworth , E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill, 2010, retrieved 20/03/2010 Makdisi had significantly revised his views. In 1989, he concluded that the European university, in fact, borrowed many of its features from the Islamic madrasah, including the core concepts of a degree and doctorate. In 1984, Norman Daniel argued that the case of transmission is overstated by Makdisi, claiming that he rests on the "the accumulation of close parallels", and is not convinced by his channels of transmission between the Muslim and Christian world.Norman Daniel: Review of "The Rise of Colleges. Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West by George Makdisi", Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 104, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1984), pp. 586-588 (586f.) Norman Daniel claimed that the Arab equivalent of the Latin disputation, the taliqa, was usually reserved for the ruler's court, rather than the madrasa, and that there were differences between Islamic fiqh and medieval European civil law. He also claimed that the taliqa only reached Islamic Spain, the most likely point of transmission, after the establishment of the first medieval universities. He argued that there is no Latin translation of the taliqa and no evidence of Latin scholars showing awareness of Arab influence on the Latin method of disputation. He claimed that it was the medieval reception of the Greek Organon which set the scholastic sic et non in motion. Daniel also argued that resemblances in method had more to do with the two religions having "common problems: to reconcile the conflicting statements of their own authorities, and to safeguard the data of revelation from the impact of Greek philosophy"; thus Christian scholasticism and similar Arab concepts should be viewed in terms of a parallel occurrence, rather than a transmission of ideas,Norman Daniel: Review of "The Rise of Colleges. Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West by George Makdisi", Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 104, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1984), pp. 586-588 (587) a view shared by Hugh Kennedy.Hugh Kennedy: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1992), pp. 272-273 (272): However, this criticism was before Makdisi's 1989 paper, which provided significantly more evidence of transmission. The origins of the medieval doctorate ("licentia docendi") dates back to the ''ijāzah al-tadrīs wa al-iftā ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") in the medieval Islamic legal education system. In an earlier 1970 investigation into the differences between the Christian university and the Islamic madrasah, Makdisi was of the opinion that the Christian doctorate of the medieval university was the one element in the university that was the most different from the Islamic ijazah certification.George Makdisi: "Madrasa and University in the Middle Ages", Studia Islamica, No. 32 (1970), pp. 255–264 (260): "Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the two systems is embodied in their systems of certification; namely, in medieval Europe, the licentia docendi, or license to teach; in medieval Islam, the ijaza, or authorization. In Europe, the license to teach was a license to teach a certain field of knowledge. It was conferred by the licensed masters acting as a corporation, with the consent of a Church authority, in Paris, by the Chancellor of the Cathedral Chapter... Certification in the Muslim East remained a personal matter between the master and the student. The master conferred it on an individual for a particular work, or works. Qualification, in the strict sense of the word, was supposed to be a criterion, but it was at the full discretion of the master, since, if he chose, he could give an ijaza to children hardly able to read, or even to unborn children. This was surely an abuse of the system...but no official system was involved. The ijaza was a personal matter, the sole prerogative of the person bestowing it; no one could force him to give one." In a later 1989 investigation, Makdisi revised his views significantly and pointed out that the ijazat attadris was, in fact, the origin of the European doctorate, and that it had a significant influence upon the magisterium of the Christian Church. According to the 1989 paper, the ijazat was equivalent to the Doctor of Laws qualification and was developed during the 9th century after the formation of the Madh'hab legal schools. To obtain a doctorate, a student "had to study in a guild school of law, usually four years for the basic undergraduate course" and at least ten years for a post-graduate course. The "doctorate was obtained after an oral examination to determine the originality of the candidate's theses," and to test the student's "ability to defend them against all objections, in disputations set up for the purpose" which were scholarly exercises practiced throughout the student's "career as a graduate student of law." After students completed their post-graduate education, they were awarded doctorates giving them the status of faqih (meaning "master of law"), mufti (meaning "professor of legal opinions") and mudarris (meaning "teacher"), which were later translated into Latin as magister, professor and doctor respectively. Along with the degree and doctorate, Makdisi and Hugh Goddard have also highlighted other terms and concepts now used in modern universities which were of Islamic origin, including "the fact that we still talk of professors holding the 'Chair' of their subject" being based on the "traditional Islamic pattern of teaching where the professor sits on a chair and the students sit around him", the term 'academic circles' being derived from the way in which Islamic students "sat in a circle around their professor", and terms such as "having 'fellows', 'reading' a subject, and obtaining 'degrees', can all be traced back" to the Islamic concepts of Ashab ("companions, as of the prophet Muhammad"), Qara'a ("reading aloud the Qur'an") and Ijazah ("licence to teach") respectively. Makdisi listed eighteen such parallels in terminology which can be traced back to their roots in Islamic education. Some of the practices now common to modern universities which Makdisi and Goddard trace back to an Islamic root include "practices such as delivering inaugural lectures, wearing academic robes, obtaining doctorates by defending a thesis, and even the idea of academic freedom are also modelled on Islamic custom." The Islamic scholarly system of fatwa and ijma, meaning opinion and consensus respectively, formed the basis of the "scholarly system the West has practised in university scholarship from the Middle Ages down to the present day." According to Makdisi and Goddard, "the idea of academic freedom" in universities was also "modelled on Islamic custom" as practised in the medieval Madrasah system from the 9th century. Islamic influence was "certainly discernible in the foundation of the first deliberately-planned university" in Europe, the University of Naples Federico II founded by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor in 1224. One of medieval Europe's first universities was the University of Salerno. It began as a monastery in the 9th century, and then during Arabic-Latin translation movement, beginning in the 11th century, it evolved into the Schola Medica Salernitana, modelled after the Islamic medical schools, before evolving into the University of Salerno. The first degree-granting university in Europe was the University of Bologna (1088). The other early Medieval European universities were the University of Paris (c. 1150, later associated with the Sorbonne), the University of Oxford (1167), the University of Cambridge (1209), the University of Salamanca (1218), the University of Montpellier (1220), the University of Padua (1222), the University of Naples Federico II (1224), and the University of Toulouse (1229).THE ORIGIN OF UNIVERSITIESMedieval Universities And the Origin of the College Historians such as George Makdisi, John Makdisi and Hugh Goddard have pointed out that these medieval universities were heavily influenced in many ways by the medieval Madrasah institutions, in Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily, as well as the Middle East during the Crusades. Madrasahs by region Madrasahs in the Ottoman Empire "The first Ottoman Medrese was created in Iznik in 1331 and most Ottoman medreses followed the traditions of sunni Islam." "When an Ottoman sultan established a new medrese, he would invite scholars from the Islamic world—for example, Murad II brought scholars from Persia, such as Ala al-Din and Fakhr al-Din who helped enhance the reputation of the Ottoman medrese". This reveals that the Islamic world was interconnected in the early modern period as they traveled around to other Islamic states exchanging knowledge. This sense that the Ottoman Empire was becoming modernized through globalization is also recognized by Hamadeh who says: "Change in the eighteenth century as the beginning of a long and unilinear march toward westernization reflects the two centuries of reformation in sovereign identity."Hamadeh, Shirine. "Ottoman Expressions of Early Modernity and the 'Inevitable' Question of Westernization". The Journal of Architectural Historians 63.1 (2004): 32–51. Inalcik also mentions that while scholars from for example Persia, traveled to the Ottomans in order to share their knowledge, Ottomans traveled as well to receive education from scholars of these Islamic lands, such as Egypt, Persia and Turkestan. Hence, this reveals that similar to today's modern world, individuals from the early modern society traveled abroad to receive education and share knowledge and that the world was more interconnected than it seems. Also, it reveals how the system of "schooling" was also similar to today's modern world where students travel abroad to different countries for studies. Examples of Ottoman madrasahs are the ones built by Mehmed the Conqueror. He built eight madrasahs that were built "on either side of the mosque where there were eight higher madrasahs for specialized studies and eight lower medreses, which prepared students for these." The fact that they were built around, or near mosques reveals the religious impulses behind Madrasah building and it reveals the interconnectedness between institutions of learning and religion. The students who completed their education in the lower medreses became known as danismends This reveals that similar to the education system today, the Ottomans had a similar kind of educational system in which there were different kinds of schools attached to different kinds of levels. For example, there were the lower madrasahs and then the specialized ones and for one to get into the specialized area meant that they had to complete the classes in the lower one in order to adequately prepare themselves for higher learning. This is the rank of Madrasahs in the Ottoman Empire from the highest ranking to the lowest: (From Inalcik, 167). 1) Semniye 2) Darulhadis 3) Madrasahs built by earlier sultans in Bursa. 4) Madrasahs endowed by great men of state. Although Ottoman Madrasahs had a number of different branches of study, such as calligraphic sciences, oral sciences, and intellectual sciences they primarily served the function of an Islamic center for spiritual learning. "The goal of all knowledge and in particular, of the spiritual sciences is knowledge of God." Religion, for the most part, determines the significance and importance of each science. As Inalcik mentions: " Those which aid religion are good and sciences like astrology are bad." However, even though mathematics, or studies in logic were part of the madrasah's curriculum, they were all centered around religion. Even mathematics had a religious impulse behind its teachings. "The Ulema of the Ottoman medreses held the view that hostility to logic and mathematics was futile since these accustomed the mind to correct thinking and thus helped to reveal divine truths" – keyword being divine. Inalcik also mentions that even philosophy was only allowed to be studied so that it helped to confirm the doctrines of Islam." Hence, madrasahs – schools were basically religious centers for religious teachings and learning in the Ottoman world. Although scholars such as Goffman have argued that the Ottomans were highly tolerant and lived in a pluralistic society, it seems that schools that were the main centers for learning were in fact heftily religious and were not religiously pluralistic, but centered around Islam. Similarly, in Europe "Jewish children learned the Hebrew letters and texts of basic prayers at home, and then attended a school organized by the synagogue to study the Torah."Wiesner-Hanks, E. Merry. Early Modern Europe 1450–1789. New York: U of Cambridge P, 2006. Wiesner-Hanks also goes on to mention that Protestants also wanted to teach "proper religious values." This goes on to show that in the early modern period, Ottomans and Europeans were similar in their ideas about how schools should be managed and what they should be primarily focused on. Thus, Ottoman madrasahs were very similar to present day schools in the sense that they offered a wide range of studies; however, the difference being that these studies, in its ultimate objective, aimed to further solidify and consolidate Islamic practices, and theories. Curriculums As is previously mentioned, religion dominated much of the knowledge and teachings that were endowed upon students. "Religious learning as the only true science, whose sole aim was the understanding of God's word." Thus, it is important to keep this impulse in mind when going over the curriculum that was taught. The following is taken from Inalcik. *A) Calligraphic sciences—such as styles of writing. *B) Oral sciences—such as Arabic language, grammar and syntax. *C) Intellectual sciences—logic in Islamic philosophy. *D) Spiritual sciences—theoretical, such as Islamic theology and mathematics; and practical, such as Islamic ethics and politics. Social life and the Medrese As with any other country during the Early Modern Period, such as Italy and Spain in Europe, the Ottoman social life was also interconnected with the medrese. Medreses were built in as part of a Mosque Complex where many programs, such as aid to the poor through soup kitchens were held under the infrastructure of a mosque, which reveals the interconnectedness of religion and social life during this period. "The mosques to which medreses were attached, dominated the social life in Ottoman cities."Goffman, Daniel. The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe. United Kingdom: U of Cambridge P, 2002. Social life was not dominated by religion only in the Muslim world of the Ottoman Empire; however, was also quite similar to the social life of Europe during this period. As Goffman says: "Just as mosques dominated social life for the Ottomans, churches and synagogues dominated life for the Christians and Jews as well." Hence, social life and the medrese were closely linked, since medreses as is previously mentioned taught many curriculums, such as religion, which highly governed social life in terms of establishing orthodoxy. "They tried moving their developing state toward Islamic orthodoxy." Overall, the fact that mosques contained medreses comes to show the relevance of education to religion in the sense that education took place within the framework of religion and religion established social life by trying to create a common religious orthodoxy. Hence, medreses were simply part of the social life of society as students came to learn the fundamentals of their societal values and beliefs. Madrasahs in South Asia India , India. This mosque dates back to the 1700s and is where Tipu Sultan used to pray.]] In India, there are around 30,000 operating madrasahs.Kennedy, Miranda. "Rumors of jihad". The Boston Globe, April 4, 2004. Accessed 12 May 2009. The majority of these schools follow the Hanafi school of thought. The religious establishment forms part of the mainly two large divisions within the country, namely the Deobandis, who dominate in numbers (of whom the Darul Uloom Deoband constitutes one of the biggest madrasas in the world) and the barelvis, who also make up a sizeable portion (sufi orientated). Some notable establishments include: Jamia Ashrafia, Mubarakpur which is one the largest learning centres for the Barelvis. Darul Uloom Deoband which is the largest, and is considered by many to be the most renowned madrasah in Asia, is located at Saharanpur district, Uttar Pradesh. The HR ministry of Government of India, has recently declared that a Central Madrasa Board would be setup. This will enhance the education system of Madrasas in India. Though the madrasas impart Quranic education mainly, efforts are on to include Mathematics, Computers and Science in the curriculum. Pakistan The madaris rose as colleges of learning in the Islamic world in the 11th century, though there were institutions of learning earlier. They catered not only to the religious establishment, though that was the dominant influence over them, but also the secular one. To the latter they supplied physicians, administrative officials, judges and teachers. Bangladesh Currently, there are three different systems of madrasah education in Bangladesh. They are the old darse nizami system, the revised and modified nizami system, and the alia nisab (higher syllabus). The first two categories are popularly called quawmi or non-government madrasahs and as of year 2002, it was estimated there are about three thousand such institutes in the country.Hossain, AKM Y. and Balal, M. "Madrasah". Banglapedia, 2006. Accessed 28 March 2010. Amongst them the most notable are Darul Uloom Moinul Islam in Hathazari, Al-Jamiya Al-Islamiya in Patiya, and Jamia Tawakkulia Renga Madrasah in Sylhet. Misuse of the word Among Western countries post-9/11, the Madrasas are often perceived as a place of radical revivalism with a negative connotation of anti-Americanism and radical extremism, frequently associated in the Western press with Wahhabi attitudes toward non-Muslims. The word madrasah literally means "school" and does not imply a political or religious affiliation, radical or otherwise. They have a varied curriculum, and are not all religious. Madrasahs in India, for example, have a secularized identity.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4829140.stm Although early Madrasahs were founded primarily to gain "knowledge of God" they also taught other subjects including mathematics and poetry. For example, in the Ottoman Empire, "Madrasahs had seven categories of sciences that were taught, such as: styles of writing, oral sciences like the Arabic language, grammar, rhetoric, and history and intellectual sciences, such as logic." This is similar to the Western world, in which universities began as institutions of the Catholic church. The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization examined bias in United States newspaper coverage of Pakistan since the September 11, 2001 attacks, and found the term has come to contain a loaded political meaning: "When articles mentioned 'madrassas,' readers were led to infer that all schools so-named are anti-American, anti-Western, pro-terrorist centers having less to do with teaching basic literacy and more to do with political indoctrination." Various American public figures have, in recent times, used the word in a negative context, including Newt Gingrich, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell. . During Soviet occupation in Afghanistan many CIA official were found involved in breeding terrorist activities in some of the madrassa schools in northern Pakistan. Those who were involved were not yet handed over to the Pakistani government to present them to courts. It was several times accepted by USA government and admitted by several involved like Donal Remsfeld, Colon Powell, Senior Bush etc. The New York Times published a correction for misusing the word "madrassa" in a way that assumed it meant a radical Islamic school. The correction stated, "An article... said Senator Barack Obama had attended an Islamic school or madrassa in Indonesia as a child referred imprecisely to madrassas. While some (madrassas) teach a radical version of Islam, most historically have not." Also as mentioned at the beginning of the article, the word itself does not necessarily mean an Islamic School or radical teaching place; it only means school or a place of education. See also *Beth midrash and Yeshiva—Jewish religious schooling *Caferağa Medresseh *Darul uloom—another similar type of Islamic school *Dars-e Nizamiyyah—most common madrasah curriculum in South Asia *Hawza—used in Shi'a Islam *Islamic architecture *Islamic studies *List of oldest madrasahs in continuous operation *Maktab *Pesantren *Wahhabism Notes Further reading * Ali, Saleem H. "Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in Pakistan's Madrassas", Oxford University Press, 2009. ISBN 9780195476729 * Evans, Alexander. "Understanding Madrasahs", Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2006. * Rahman, Tariq. [http://books.google.com/books?id=qEucAAAAMAAJ Denizens of Alien Worlds: A Study of Education, Inequality and Polarization in Pakistan]. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2004. Reprinted 2006. ISBN 9780195978636. Chapter on "Madrassas". * Tanweer, Bilal. "Revisiting the Madrasa Question". The News International, 6 May 2007. About a talk given by Dr. Nomanul Haq (University of Pennsylvania) at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan. * Ziad, Waleed. "Madaris in Perspective". Reprinted from The News, March 21, 2004. External links * Meaning of the word madrassah * Pakistani Madrassahs: A Balanced View—A project of the United States Institute of Peace * Islam Way Online - Your Religion and Spirituality Portal—A traditional Afghan madrassa * Madrasas.info—About Islamic religious schools * Lessons from God—The Common Language Project * Picture of an Ottoman Madrasah